04/12/2019

EMSR408 Wildfires in New South Wales, Australia

EMS INFORMATION BULLETIN Nr 127

THE COPERNICUS EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SERVICE

MONITORS IMPACT OF FIRES IN AUSTRALIA

As media reports, the bushfire season was devastating this year in Australia, with fires burning hundreds of thousands of hectares across several states. In the majority of the country, the fire conditions were in fact “above average” or “highest on record” in winter when compared with the average since 1950. This autumn, the region New South Wales (NSW) has been the most severely hit, with more than 1.65 million hectares razed and six dead. The area NSW Shoalhaven remains at emergency warning level (source).

The scale and severity of the fires in early November, as well as the deteriorating conditions, made it challenging for assessment teams to get into affected areas, and stretched resources. On 13 November, the Emergency Management Australia / Crisis Coordination Centre and New South Wales Rural Fire Service through the European Delegation to Australia requested the activation of the Rapid Mapping service for detecting the extent of the fires and monitoring its spread over initially 10 areas of interest (AoIs).

As the activation progressed, the extent of the initial AoIs was redefined to fit the spread of the fire (using the location of active flames and fire fronts detected), and new AoIs suggested by the national authorities were added. The detection of numerous active flames (in total 1487) motivated the production of 15 monitoring satellite-based maps.

From the activation start on 13 November to its closure on 28 November, 29 satellite-based maps were produced over 14 AoIs in the New South Wales region. A total of 1.507.188 hectares of burnt area was detected, affecting approx. 2035 inhabitants.

Juan Escalante, operational focal point for Copernicus EMS at the EU’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre in Brussels (DG ECHO-ERCC), said "this activation […] represents one of the most important ones in terms of the analysis produced. […]. [It] helps first responders on the field in order to make decisions, it's not only showing the burnt area". (source) The ERCC at the heart of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism coordinates the delivery of assistance to disaster stricken countries both in and outside the European Union. It is the entry point for any Copernicus Rapid Mapping activation request and once accepted the ERCC forwards the request to the 24/7 map production team Rapid Mapping. The current map production team is a consortium of European companies and academia with e-GEOS (Italy), GAF (Germany), Telespazio Ibèrica (Spain), ITHACA (Italy), SIRS and Strasbourg University (France), as well as GMV (Spain).

The map production team orders the necessary satellite imagery, analyses them and releases the satellite-based maps to the user in shortest time possible.

Some of the satellite-based maps were also the results of the collaboration with the International Charter

Space and Major Disasters who provided high resolution satellite imagery for specific areas. In April 2018

a cooperation agreement was signed between the Copernicus Emergency Management Service

(Copernicus EMS) and the International Charter Space and Major Disasters associating when possible

efforts to access satellite data and derived information products showing the impact of large disasters in

the world. After Tropical Cyclones Idai, Kenneth, Dorian, and the earthquake in Indonesia in September,

this was the fifth disaster for which both mechanisms cooperated in 2019.

The maps and vector data are available for viewing and download on the EMS Website:

https://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/list-of-components/EMSR408

For updates on our activations, follow Copernicus EMS on Twitter.

Learn more about the Copernicus programme and its Emergency Management Service online.

The Activation Extent Map (AEM) showing the areas of interest and associated products (Copernicus EMS © 2019 EU,

[EMSR408: Wildfires in New South Wales, Australia]).

The delineation product of the area around Gospers, showing over 169.527,3 ha (1.695 km2) of burnt area at the time of satellite

imagery acquisition (Copernicus EMS © 2019 EU, [EMSR408: Gospers: Delineation overview map 01]

For more information contact support@copernicus.eu +32 495 544 844 (European CET time) Follow our Twitter feed @CopernicusEMS where maps and vector data are posted automatically in near real-time

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE COPERNICUS EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SERVICE (EMS)

Copernicus is the European Union Earth Observation and Monitoring Programme.

The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS) uses satellite imagery and other geospatial data

to provide free of charge mapping service in cases of large natural disasters, human-made emergency

situations and humanitarian crises throughout the world. The maps are produced in two temporal modes:

● Rapid Mapping consists of the provision of geospatial information in support of emergency

management activities immediately following a disaster. Different types of maps are produced:

the Reference product to ascertain the situation before the event, the First Estimate product and

the Delineation product to assess the geographical extent of the event with respectively a rough

or detailed assessment, or the Grading product to evaluate the magnitude and impact of the

damage resulting from the event.

● Risk & Recovery Mapping consists of the provision of geospatial information in support of disaster

management activities that are not related to immediate emergency response but rather to pre-

disaster risk assessment or post-disaster recovery monitoring. This applies to activities dealing

with prevention, preparedness, disaster risk reduction and recovery phases.

The EMS can be triggered only by or through an Authorised User (AU). Authorised Users include the

National Focal Points (NFPs) of the EU Member States and countries participating in the Copernicus

programme, as well as European Commission services and the European External Action Service (EEAS),

including the EU Delegations. Beneficiary end users of EMS include entities and organisations at regional,

national, European and international level actors in the field of civil protection and humanitarian aid.

Interested Users may trigger the service by sending a Service Request Form (SRF) directly to the European

Response Coordination Centre (ERCC): echo-ercc@ec.europa.eu.

The Copernicus EMS also provides Forest Fire (EFFIS), Floods (EFAS) and Drought (EDO) Early Warning

products for Europe as well as at global level.

The Copernicus programme

Copernicus, the European Earth Observation and Monitoring Programme, is served by dedicated satellites

(the family of Copernicus Sentinels) and a set of Contributing Missions (additional satellites from existing

commercial and national agencies). Since the launch of Sentinel-1A in 2014, the European Union set in

motion a process to place a constellation of almost 20 more satellites in orbit before 2030. Today, seven

fully operational Sentinel satellites (Sentinel-1A and -B, Sentinel-2A and -B, Sentinel-3A and -B and

Sentinel-5P) are in orbit to continually provide operational satellite information. This satellite data is

complemented by and validated with in situ data.

Six Copernicus Services transform the full, free and open data into value-added information by processing

and analysing the data to transform them into services and products such as informative maps, data sets

and reports.

These six services are:

● The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service

● The Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service

● The Copernicus Land Monitoring Service

● The Copernicus Climate Change Service

● The Copernicus Emergency Management Service

● The Copernicus Security Service

Copernicus is coordinated and managed by DG GROW in the European Commission. It is implemented in

partnership with the EU Member States, the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Organisation

for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the European Centre for Medium-Range

Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), EU Agencies and Mercator Ocean. The European Commission Joint Research

Centre offers the technical support of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service whilst the

Emergency Response Coordination Centre of DG ECHO assists civil protection actors with the handling of

the EMS mapping requests on a 24/7 basis.

For more information

Copernicus website: copernicus.eu

Copernicus Emergency Management Service website: emergency.copernicus.eu

On Twitter @CopernicusEMS